


as close as hands and feet

by possibilityleft



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Backstory, Extra Treat, Gen, Sisters, non-traditional family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 02:32:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2411741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/possibilityleft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lin and Suyin: sisters always, sometimes friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as close as hands and feet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> I have a lot of feelings about the Bei Fong sisters so I have to thank you for the opportunity to spill them all over the page in this treat. Spoilers for 3x06 Old Wounds, but none for Season 4.

Katara is the one who warns Lin that Suyin is coming. About a month before her mom gives birth, Lin is playing with Tenzin and an indulgent Kya when Aunt Katara pulls her aside and asks her if she knows why her mom has gotten so big lately. When Lin says her mom has been eating a lot, Katara sighs. She explains that Lin is about to get a new sister or brother and when she takes Lin home later she has a very pointed whisper with Toph. Toph laughs. 

"I thought it would make a nice surprise," she says, and Katara gets a sour look on her face. For a long time Lin wonders if her mom doesn't see the way she makes Katara feel, and that's why she does this. By the time she's ten, she knows it's on purpose. 

She also knows that little sisters are super annoying. Suyin wants to follow her everywhere and play with all of Lin's toys. She wants to bend even though she isn't old enough yet. Lin can't get a moment to herself, and Mom just seems to think it's funny. She makes Lin take her sister with her when she goes to visit Tenzin or Uncle Sokka or anyone else she's allowed to go see by herself. And everyone is always comparing them, too. Lin hates it.

Suyin was the easy baby, cooing and cheerful from the start. Apparently Lin was a crier. Suyin is always smiling her stupid little baby smile, and people are always telling Lin she should smile more.

Sometimes Lin does like her sister. It's nearly impossible to get in trouble when she's around, since people don't think a four-year-old is being bad on purpose. She believes Lin's stories, no matter how silly they are. And when Mom is working late and they have to stay with someone overnight, there is something infinitely comforting to sharing a bed with her little sister; it's like still being at home.

*

The older they get, the more Mom leaves them alone to take care of each other. Once Lin is thirteen, Mom puts her officially in charge during her absences, deputizing her older daughter in a brief ceremony that ends with Lin receiving a tiny police badge. It is her favorite birthday gift and she wears it every day. She works hard on her grades and her bending since she knows that Mom will make her take the same exam that everyone else does. Maybe a harder one.

Suyin doesn't want to be a police officer. What she wants to do changes every day, and she usually makes Lin play along. She plays the mom so Lin has to play the baby, or they play healers or shopkeepers or whatever has caught her eye this week. It's not so bad as long as there's no one else around to see them being silly together.

When she's fourteen, Lin decides that she's totally going to marry Tenzin when they grow up and she tells Su, but makes her promise not to say anything. Tenzin is tall and lanky now, and recently he shaved all his hair off to get his airbender tattoos. He let Lin touch the ones on his arm, and she thinks they're pretty cool.

She doesn't know why she thought that Suyin could keep that secret. Suyin tells Mom and Mom tells Aunt Katara and they both laugh about it, which Lin thinks is pretty unfair, considering that Aunt Katara and Uncle Aang met when they were her age. But the worst part is that someone tells Tenzin and now he doesn't want to practice bending with her anymore or spend time together. He gets all weird and blushes a lot.

"Punch him in the arm," Mom advises, but people always say ouch when she does that, so Lin doesn't think she's being serious.

"Propose!" Suyin says, clutching at her sister's arm. "We can all dress up and have a wedding! Oooh, yeah, let's go put on pretty dresses and have a wedding!"

Lin bends Suyin a little crown out of one of Mom's metal desk decorations and tells her to go away. She's already caused enough trouble.

Lin talks to her friends at school and they give her way better advice. She lets Anju do her makeup and she takes the ferry out to the island. Then she gets up on her tiptoes and she kisses him. He kisses her back.

Of course, it's Suyin who tells Mom that Lin and Tenzin are dating now, leading to the most uncomfortable conversation in Lin's life.

(At least Toph hadn't decided that sex ed should be a surprise.)

*

The older Suyin gets, the less likely she is to listen to her sister. Or anyone, really. Lin tells Suyin not to get involved with the Triads, but she just says that they're fun guys, really misunderstood. She stays out all hours of the night and drinks way more than she should. She won't say where she's been or who she's seeing. Lin hardly sees her, in fact. Sometimes when she gets up early for work she peeks in on Suyin's bedroom and finds her snoring. Other times, the bed is empty.

Mom won't say anything about it. If she says anything, it's basically the same thing Suyin says. Suyin will learn soon enough who the right people are to spend time with. Suyin has to make her own mistakes. Suyin will settle down when she's ready. Lin knows that her mom is busy with politics, which she hates, and work, which she loves, and that by the time her children are fifteen, she expects her job in raising them to be over. Mom loves them; Lin has no doubt about this, but she's not like Aunt Katara is. She didn't make her children the central part of her life, just a part. And she was perfectly happy for Lin when Lin struck it out on her own. Now she's perfectly happy for Suyin to make her own way. 

The thing is, Lin has been asking for the Triad calls lately. She doesn't tell her sergeant why, just that she's trying to make her own name. Sarge believes her; he knows how hard it has to be to be the chief's kid. Most people don't go to work at a building that has a huge statue of their parent in front of it.

Lin doesn't know what to do when she sees Suyin driving the car, but the frustration and anger overwhelms her. She will accept no excuses for Suyin's behavior now. Suyin can't just walk away from this.

But she does, and that burns Lin more than the scar.

*

When Lin wakes up, the morning after her fight with Suyin, she reaches for the hurt that she expected to feel, but it's gone. She woke up this morning feeling better than she's felt in twenty years. She doesn't even put her armor back on for the first time since her last injuries. The robes she found in the closet are soft against her skin, forgiving. She likes it.

So maybe there is something to acupuncture. And there is definitely something to ending a fight that has been going on for decades. She should have remembered this after the way things worked out with Tenzin. She would call him a friend, now.

She has a sister again. That's what this feels like: like that day that Mom brought Suyin home with her, all terrifying and new. She doesn't even know how to talk about it. There's still some part of her that thinks that sharing is only going to leave her open to pain.

The thing is, though, that Lin never shies away from physical pain. She'll take the blow and deliver it back. Fighting like that is easy. It's all black and white, surviving this moment, looking for the opportunity.

Here she is, finding one in an unexpected place.

They stay up half the night, catching up. Mom apparently visited Suyin more than she ever visited Republic City, and Lin tries not to be resentful of that, to fall into old patterns. Toph felt a great loyalty and love for her city, but Lin knows she also thought of it as a chore, as something had that to be looked after. Lin could have visited her more. 

Suyin had sent Lin a number of letters that are still collecting dust in the bottom of Lin's closet. She asks Suyin if she should read them now, and Suyin just laughs. 

"Probably not. The earlier ones are pretty aggressive. It's a good thing you didn't read them, they would have just made you madder. Gaoling was so boring, I had to do something to pass the time."

Lin remembers a few awkward weeks every summer and she has to agree. It would have been worse if Mom hadn't been there as a buffer. Their grandparents were always too busy being disapproving of their daughter's life choices to spend a lot of time with the girls, although Poppy did like buying them dresses.

After a while they start reminiscing and their laughter wakes Opal. Lin hadn't meant to, but she's not doing great with volume levels after the third bottle of wine is opened. And the girl is so quiet that Lin almost doesn't see her come into the room. Suyin is telling a story about some crazy thing that she and Kya did that Lin had never previously known about, so Lin manages to crack a smile for her niece. Opal smiles back. Lin wonders, idly, how much she ever fights with her brothers. She'd bet it happens.

That's how siblings are, after all. The important thing is to realize that no matter what, you're still family. But Lin doesn't say that; there's a limit to this vulnerability thing.

Instead she starts telling Opal stories about her mother's girlhood, over Suyin's half-hearted protests, and pours herself another glass of wine.


End file.
